The Kenai Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center is currently hosting its first-ever Haunted Chamber. Held inside the chamber’s conference room, it is the only free haunted house on the peninsula this spooky season. Fog machines, suspenseful music and chamber members working to scare are just a few of the fear factors.
“It is the first one that we’ve done, there was a lot of learning that went into it,” said Liam Floyd, Recruitment and Development Coordinator at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce. Floyd suggested the idea to other chamber members about two months ago.
“Everything inside is built by us,” he added.
The haunted maze was constructed with about 2,200 feet of PVC pipe donated by local sponsors. Floyd says people across the community helped build and run the event, including chamber family members and high school students. Because of other events already scheduled in the chamber’s conference room, they were unable to set up the maze until the day before it opened.
Even though this year’s haunted maze had less planning than other Chamber occurrences, the community response has been positive.
“We’re thrilled with the community response,” said Samantha Springer, Executive Director at the Kenai Chamber of Commerce. “I have to say on Facebook, I think we had 880-something people say they were interested in coming. For a Facebook event for a Chamber, that’s actually really big.”
Kenai Chamber of Commerce staff members say they are delighted to host events that both children and adults can enjoy. They added that the Haunted Chamber was the perfect event to hold between their summertime and holiday happenings.
“Everything that we do here, we do with the intention of trying to better it for the next year,” said Floyd. “Now that we have all this wealth of experience and a lot of materials on hand, we’re hoping to step it up even higher next year.”
The Kenai Chamber of Commerce Haunted Chamber will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Thursday, Oct. 19,. Admission is free but donations of money or canned goods are appreciated.
